Choice
by anymousie
Summary: How can one choice change the future? how much does one life touch the world?


Disclaimer: If I were brilliant enough to create a new universe, would I be writing here

Disclaimer: If I were brilliant enough to create a new universe, would I be writing here? Didn't think so.

-- -- -- -- -- -- --

War and hate.

War and hate.

There is no love here.

My world is at war and is full of hate. I am at war with myself. Part of me hates the other.

My world has been at war since I was a child. I have been at war with myself for the past six years. I am at war due to something I did twelve years ago. It makes me hate myself and it makes it hard to love the baby I still have.

My beautiful baby boy. He, of course, would say he is not a baby, after all, he is five and a half! Don't get me wrong, I love Jacob, but seeing him, living and breathing, cuts a hole through wall around the part of me I want to hide from the world and myself.

I made a choice. I made my bed, now I have to sleep in it.

Maybe I deserve this war and the fear that comes with it for my mistake. But does Jacob deserve to grow up in a broken world just because of my bad choice.

At least he is safe here. Hogwarts has always been a safe haven. I miss the time I used to have with Jacob, but, as a favor to Dumbledore, I am filling in as the Charms professor due to Flitwick's death over the winter holidays.

The first year students haunt me. James doesn't understand why I have been acting different these last three weeks.

-- -- -- -- -- -- --

My demons haunt me. I wish I could destroy them, but how can I? I cannot even face them more than one day a year.

Thirteen years ago I did something I will regret for the rest of my life. My husband does not know of it. He would hate me if he were to ever find out.

I face my demon alone.

I wish there were no second year classes today. They mock me, and they do not even know it.

-- -- -- -- -- -- --

James knows something is wrong. I could not look at Jacob today. I hurt my baby!

James was surprised, I was not. I know what I am capable of. I am as bad as the monster that has plagued my world ever since I found it at the age of eleven. I too became a monster fourteen years ago.

No child should have to grow up during his reign of terror, yet here they are. I envy their parents, who were brave enough to have them.

Today was a Saturday; I did not have to teach them this year on this day. Small blessings in this war-torn world.

-- -- -- -- -- -- --

I need to tell him. It was fifteen years ago, and I still cannot face it. James deserves the truth. Jacob does too, though maybe he can wait a few years. He is only 8.

They should know why I am particularly crabby after I teach the fourth year classes. James would maybe understand why they haunt me. It isn't really the students who are here who bother me, but the absence of one who should be. It is my fault that child isn't studying, enjoying life.

James wants another child. Part of me does too. The other me feels I don't deserve it. I don't even deserve the boy I do have.

-- -- -- -- -- -- --

I taught a combined fifth year class today. It was too much. I told James. He was shocked and left for a few hours. When he came back, we talked about all that happened back then, sixteen years ago.

We decided to tell Jacob next year, when he is ten, perhaps even on this sad anniversary.

I was scared then. There was a war going on, the same one that rages now. I did not think it was right, it wasn't a good time. When ever is a "good time"? A baby will always change everything, no matter how much you are planning for it.

I was nervous. I didn't know if I should go through with it. But they said it was my body, my choice. But it wasn't only my body back then, was it? It belonged to another. And that body wasn't mine.

That is why the empty chair in the now fifth year class haunts me. It belongs to my child. He or she would be fifteen years old now, and if magical, would be hear, learning charms from me. What I did sixteen years ago today changed that.

Voldemort struck hard today, Hogsmeade. He has been growing in strength for the past forty some years. I don't know if there will ever be anyone who can stop him.

At the Order meeting there was rumor of a prophecy made fifteen and a half years ago.

-- -- -- -- -- -- --

Jacob found out today. He was confused and a little hurt. He wondered if I would have done the same to him. I told him the thought never crossed my mind; even back then I was haunted by that ghost-child of my nightmares.

Another ghost-child was created today. Voldemort destroyed the prophecy child. His name was Neville Longbottom. He was in his sixth year here. A bit of a loner, friends only with the other outcast of his class, Hermione Granger. I hope the other Gryffindor will include her now, help her heal. I wonder if my child would have. Would he or she have been in Gryffindor, Ravenclaw? Or somewhere else? It would still be my baby, no matter the house.

The world seems doomed. Everyday, fewer are able to resist the evil of Voldemort. I fear Jacob will not have a Hogwarts to graduate from, if he is able to survive that long.

Why did the prophecy not hold true? Neville was the only one who fit the description. Why could he not "vanquish the Dark Lord"?

-- -- -- -- -- -- --

The world is crumbling. I know we will not hold out much longer. I realize now it is my fault. My baby would have also fit the description, but I destroyed my baby's chance and the world's chance.

It was a boy. James and I decided so, and we gave him a name: Harry James Potter.

Maybe he could have saved the world, maybe not.

ONE THING I DO KNOW: I COULD HAVE SAVED HIS WORLD.

I did not give him a fighting chance. Maybe I have destroyed us all. Maybe my boy would have gone bad and it all would have ended sooner.

Jacob was a first year. Harry would have been in his seventh. I wonder if they would have died with us.

Voldemort is coming for James and me now. The Great Hall was destroyed during lunch today, taking out all of the children and teachers. Now I will go on to the next world and hopefully meet my child, the one I had "taken care of" eighteen years ago today.

I wonder how my choice effected the rest of the world. Had I made a different choice, what would have happened differently?

Author's note: If you didn't catch it, this was from Lily Potter's POV


End file.
